Product review: Growseed chilli-growing kit

It's not very often that I review products on my blog, because all too often the suppliers are only interested in 100% positive reviews (even if they are not justified) but in this case I think you'll understand why I am making an exception - this is a chilli-growing kit. How could I resist?

Gerry from Growseed has kindly sent me a free sample of one of their new range of products, featuring simple kits with everything you need to get started on growing one of three types of vegetable - chillis, sweet peppers and tomatoes. I think this type of product will be most suitable for less-experienced gardeners, and children with adult supervision.

As seen in the photo above, the kit comes inside a black plastic seed-tray and is held together with a sleeve identifying the product. Unpacked, it looks like this...

There is an 18 x 23 cm seed tray with a clear plastic propagator-style lid; two small bags of soil enriched with blood fish and bone fertiliser; three different packs of seed (several variants are available, but mine were Jalapeno, Demon Red and Cayenne Long Slim), and three plastic labels. Due to difficulties with printers, the Review products do not have this, but the general-release item will also include a card with instructions for use.

The seeds themselves are sealed in foil packs, so should keep fresh for quite a while if unopened. The packs do not have any growing instructions on them, but I'm sure that will be covered in the instruction leaflet mentioned above. It's already a month past the time when I usually sow my chilli seeds, but I'm going to sow some of these ones straight away to see how they do.

Actually, one of the things I like least about the kit is the labels. I think white ones would be better, so that what you write on them would be more visible!

The lidded seed-tray / mini-propagator is quite flimsy, but I think well-suited to a Starter kit like this. The more experienced gardener would probably choose something more durable.

I have four grandchildren, and I reckon that at least three of them (excluding the youngest, who is only 3) would be very pleased to receive a kit like this as a gift from a gardening grandparent - though probably they would prefer the Tomato kit to the Chilli one.

Of course it needs to be emphasised that these kits only cover the initial stages of growing a chilli or a tomato. The pricking-out, potting-up, staking etc come later on, and the kits don't cover those. A child or novice gardener might not be aware of this!

These products, with full descriptions and instructions for their use are available via Growseed's website HERE . The price is £2.99 plus £1.00 postage on orders less than £10.